blog.forgreatjustice.net

15′ until kickoff. The stadium is still filling up. The atmosphere is dense with humidity, electric with the anticipation of 60,000 other fans who, like you, are counting down the seconds until their team takes the field.

When I heard about the game at Giants Stadium, I knew I had to get back to Jersey (my ancestral homeland). With me that night: my dad and my uncle, and one of my buddies from high school. My dad and uncle had seen some USMNT games in person, but years ago. This was my first national-team game; my friend had never seen a pro soccer match in person at all.

The crowd was a 60/40 split between fans of Argentina and the US (which is a usually a good ratio for a US national game; that peculiar fact is a complicated one). A band of Argentina fans - by which I mean an actual band: brass, drums, chanting - stood just outside our section, making their show of bravado and generally trying to get in our heads. Their supporters unfurled the blue-and-white flag on their side of the field, and in turn Sam’s Army unfurled a huge “US Soccer” crest, emblazoned with our ancient motto. “Don’t Tread on Me”.

0′. Kickoff. All that waiting and clock-watching, and kickoff takes me by surprise. The game just starts off like a whisper: a look, a short pass and a roar from the crowd.

25′. The US is in it and fighting. From my view their play is rugged and scrappy, with burst of finesse being echoed with cheers from the US crowd. The players know how dangerous Argentina can be, and must leave them no room: two or more defenders quickly moved in to cut down any run by their side, and that wasn’t always enough.

You had to respect Argentina, the current #1 team in the world. They would frequently play “quiet” passing the ball back through their midfield and backline, but at any given second they would wake up and starting a piercing attack, slashing open layers of defense and leaving it up to our phenomenal goalie (Tim Howard) to save the day. There was no room for error.

67′. Outrage, incompetence.

There were questionable calls throughout the game, but then it seemed that one of the players was mistakenly sent off. How can you possibly eject someone from the game by mistake? (How can you eject a player from a friendly game for minor shoving?)

And yet: while Argentina has dominated for moments in the second half, the US has had its attacking share as well, and came as close as hitting the crossbar, but no closer.

I was in full fan mode, passionate and cheering for the USA, and blissfully biased in my take on the game. Intellectually I knew that not every run was a real chance at goal, and not every call against us was a grievous crime. I knew this, but I did not feel it. I could only feel myself chanting with the crowd. “U-S-A”: a simple chant, even painfully simple if you want to analyze it. But I certainly didn’t care. There was just my father, my friend and myself, caught up in cheers of the crowd.

85′. Thunderbolts and lightening.

I kid you not: in this, the 85th minute, one of the Argentine players was sent off, bringing the teams level once more. And at that moment, it started pouring down rain, and not just rain but a full lightening storm. The rain revived the happy crowd, and thunder punctuated the aggressive play of both teams.

As storm broke I saw a new ferocity in my players, now unlocked. In the last remaining minutes of the game, the US was on a relentless attack. They had so much more to prove in this game, and with the clouds on their side, they went for it.

95′ or so. After long stoppage time, and a final attack by the US: the final whistle. A 0-0 game, but the most exciting scoreless tie I could have seen.

I’m a fan of the local soccer team, the New England Revolution, and follow American soccer in general. At the moment, I’m not terribly happy with how the team has been treating its players in the off-season. Let me first share two comments from “Center Holds It”: link. (Read the post; I’ll be talking about similar stuff.)

Jeff: “The ‘Noonan situation,’ in particular, amounts to telling employees that this year’s Christmas bonus will be a punch to the kidneys. I mean, the guy finished fairly strong, he was pivotal in earning the Revolution their first-ever trophy (U.S. Open Cup) and, for this, he gets a $100K pay-cut?”

Martek (in the comments): “Can we really say that MLS has upheld their end of that bargain? It is with a real sense of foreboding that I, and you if I read your posts correctly, must conclude that the answer to that question is ‘No.’”

To summarize the problem: the tight-fisted financial behavior of the Revs has indeed kept their bottom line low, but also has disgruntled at least two of their starting players (Joseph and Twellman) and probably chased away several more (Noonan? Dorman?). Noonan’s situation is that his option was declined, was offered a drastically lower salary; Twellman received a generous transfer offer from the UK (which would have been a windfall for the team), but this was declined, presumably to avoid the cost of finding a new player to fill his role.

As a fan, I have various priorities about who should stay or go, but it’s most important that my team - the subject of my loyalty - to treat its players with respect. If they stay, I want them to be happy and motivated when wearing the badge; if they’d rather transfer, then I’ll thank them and hope they hit it big next time. (Clint Dempsey, after a stellar tour with the Revs, is making a name for himself with Fulham FC in England. I think that’s great, even as I miss having him as a starter.)

I’m not going to criticize Kraft (the Revs owner) for not spending more money, because that’s a silly criticism on its own. He has a reputation for thrift (even in the uber-profitable NFL), and thrift is vital for a pro soccer franchise to thrive. I’m not asking about money.

The problem is that I think that the franchise risks being “cheap” instead of “thrifty”. There’s a difference here. Thrift is a virtue; cleverness and foresight are used to avoid unnecessary expense, and focus investment on the best possible future investment. It is forward looking: you make your limited resources count in order to achieve the strongest outcome in your future.

To be “cheap”, however, is no virtue. In doing so, you’re specifically giving up foresight, and cannibalizing your existing resources in order to lower your current expenses. Cheapness looks towards getting by with lower quality (rather than making more of what quality you have); it seeks to retake what you’ve given to your partners (rather than being cautious in what you negotiate in the first place).

It can be “thrifty” to focus heavily on drafting and developing undiscovered, unproven American talent, as has been a core of Coach Nicol’s strategy. It would be “cheap” to pay your starting forward $220k in one year, and to offer him only half that after a strong season. (And isn’t this kind of cheapness just wasteful, in the end? All you’re doing is negotiating a clumsy, public sort of pink-slip.)

But some might say: isn’t this what negotiation is all about? Isn’t the ownership always going to fight, tooth and nail, against the solicitous players? Aren’t these players just getting stuck with contracts they chose to voluntarily sign? They should just suck up the consequences without whining, right? (I hear this in some quarters, even amongst loyal fans.)

The franchise could negotiate like this always, but should only do so if this is good for them in the long term; I fear this is not the case. The situation of modern American soccer affords much more bargaining leverage to the owners of the team, rather than the players. However: the modern American league still can attract underpriced native talent if young players feel trust that a team will be a stable place to grow, and a fair partner in their career development. (Martek refers to “hometown discounts” as an advantage in MLS.)

If the ownership is playing too much hardball, they’re giving up this potential advantage, and certainly salting the fields of future negotiation. (If a team killed a veteran player’s shot of a multi-million dollar payday, would you trust them with your long-term prospects? That’s exactly the charge at the feet of the Revs organization.)

Now, let me throw in some caveats: I don’t know the details of the negotiations that players went through. Perhaps the players who left the team did in fact get the best possible payoff. Perhaps there’s a larger strategy behind the scenes about the organization’s resources and its roster choices. Perhaps the challenge of keeping a pro-soccer team afloat is deeper than I anticipate, and this miserly attitude is necessary to stay alive. Still: I have no good justification for them killing the Twellman deal; it seems to be a lose-lose proposition, even taking into account the cost of reorganizing the post-Twellman team. There are possible answers, but I’m not yet convinced.

Cashflow might be a thin resource out there, but trust and reputation are also limited resources, and they too can be frittered away. Ultimately, the dynamic between ownership and talent will rebalance, and the deficits in trustworthiness will be revealed and corrected. In short: playing unfair is a losing game.

(And that follows for any venture, whether it’s a soccer team or a startup.)